During his period of study, Dominik Laute was prompted by playgrounds to take a critical look at the relationship between children and public spaces.
Playgrounds are produced as safe islands suitable for children in an unsafe and “child-hostile” urban environment. The playground as a space production for children excludes children from the majority of urban spaces. Playgrounds are based on specific ideas of childhood that lead to a predominant form of playground architecture. Ready-made play equipment is created from materials such as metal, wood, and hard plastic. Due to its materiality and finality, the architecture is closed to processes of transformation and appropriation by children. The finished play equipment is aimed at the “operation” of the play equipment (sliding on the slide, swinging on the swing, etc.), and is so organizing children’s play and children’s lives.
This PhD project will deal with this field of tension. The relationship between children and architectural production in the context of different playgrounds will be examined in order to gain insight into how certain material structures establish a special form of architecture that organizes children’s play and childhood. This examination should also include moments in which children elude the organization and organize architectures themselves. By looking at other playgrounds (e.g. adventure playgrounds), places where children can be understood as part of architectural production and playgrounds as they are created as places by children will be examined. Following on from this, it will be asked how this is connected to the emergence of child-environment relationships.
The doctoral project attempts to inscribe itself critically at the interface of geography, architecture, and urban planning.